Semantic contrastives.

There are three types of semantic contrastives:

1) antonymy (антонимия)

2) converseness (конверсивность)

3) complimentarity (комплементарность)

Antonyms are words which belong to the same part of speech and are identical in style but express contrary or contradictory notions.

Classification of antonyms by Никитин:

1) absolute and derivational

Absolute antonyms have different roots. Derivational antonyms have the same root but different affixes.

F.e.: absolute: good – bad; derivational: to understand – to misunderstand.

2) qualitative and quantitative

In case of quantitative antonymy two words are characterized by one feature but different quantity of it. F.e.: light – heavy (the feature is weight); tall – short (the feature is height).

In case of qualitative antonymy we have different features, different qualities. F.e.: good – bad; to love – to hate.

3) contrary and contradictory

Contrary antonyms always have a middle terms. F.e.: cold – hot (middle – warm, etc.).

Contradictory antonyms don’t have a middle term between them. F.e.: dead – alive; single – married.

4) intensional and extensional / incompatibles

Extensional / incompatibles antonyms. They don’t have lexical meaning proper and require further specification. They exist in the language only together with their antonyms. F.e. afternoon – not afternoon; red – not red; round – not round.

Classification by Кубрякова, Коцнельсон:

1) qualitative they call privative and quantitative they call equipollent

2) contrary they call binary and contradictory they call gradual

Conversives.

Converseness is a type of semantic opposition which is based on describing one and the same situation from different angles, from the point of view of different participants of the situation and their roles.

F.e.: to buy – to sell; to give – to take; left - right.

Sometimes conversives are called mirror-image relationship.

Classification of conversives:

1) lexical conversives – they are formed from different roots. F.e.: to buy – to sell.

2) morphological conversives – formed from the same root. F.e.: interesting – interested; worrying – worried.

3) grammatical conversives – based on the opposition between active and passive forms. F.e. to write – to be written.

4) conversives in which the oppositeness of meaning is realized within the semantics of one and the same word. F.e.: to burn – поджигать и гореть; to smell; to taste.

Complimentaries.

Complimentarity is the type of semantic opposition in which the denial of one means the assertion of the other and v.v. It is the type of oppositeness which is based on “yes/no”-decision.

F.e.: male – female; boy – girl; married – single.

Complimentaries are not gradeable.

Antonyms do not contradict each other, but Complimentaries always do.

F.e.: A small elephant is a large animal. – it is possible. / A male elephant is a female animal. – it is not possible.

Polysemy.

Polysemy is the plurality of meanings. Polysemy exists in the language but not in speech. The meaning of a word in speech is always predetermined by the context, all unnecessary meanings are cancelled and the meaning of the word is clear.

Three types of polysemy:

1) radiation (радиальная). In case of radiation the first meaning is in the center and all other meanings are formed from it.

F.e.: face. In the center – “the front part of human head”. Meanings formed from the center: “face of the clock”; “face of the card”; “face of the company”.

2) concatenation / chain polysemy (цепочечная). Secondary meanings develop like a chain. Sometimes it is very difficult to trace the last meaning to the first one.

F.e.: crust. Heart, outer part of bread → Heart, outer part of anything → Hard layer of a soft snow → A gloomy person → Impudence.

3) mixed type (смешанная). This type is the most common.

F.e.: to dress.

The first center – “to cover the body”. Meanings formed from this center: “We don’t dress for dinner nowadays”; “The princess is dressed by the best designers”; “to dress the ballet”; “to dress the wound”.

The second center - “to get smb ready for smth”. Meanings formed from this center: “to dress smb’s hair” (уложить); “to dress a chicken” (выпотрошить); “to dress a horse” (почистить); “to dress a salad” (добавить специй); “to dress soldiers” (проводить смотр войск); “to dress leather” (обрабатывать кожу); “to dress stone” (делать огранку).

Word formation.

Word formation is the system of derivative types of words and the process of creating new words from the material, available in the language, according to structural and semantic patterns.

There are two types of word formation: major and minor.

Major types are the most productive (principle types). There are three major types of word formation:

1) compounding / composition (словосложение)

2) affixation

3) conversion

Minor types are less productive then the first three types:

1) shortening / clipping

2) blending

3) sound imitation

4) back formation

5) sound interchange

5) distinctive stress

Compounding.

Compounding is joining two or more stems together to form a new word.

Classification of compounds:

1) according to the type of composition

1.1 without any connecting element. F.e.: heartbreak, somebody, bookcase.

1.2 with a vowel or a consonant as a connecting element. F.e.: speedometer, handicraft, sportsman.

1.3 with a preposition or a conjunction as a connecting element. F.e.: brother-in-law, matter-of-fact, mother-of-pearl, up-to-date, day-and-night.

2) according to the structure

2.1 consisting of simple stems. F.e.: ladybird, heartbeat.

2.2 one stem is simple, the other is a derived one. F.e.: hairdoer, chain-smoker.

2.3 one of the stems is clipped / shortened. F.e.: pop-music, Xmas.

2.4 one of the elements is a compound word itself. F.e.: wastepaper basket.

3) according to the relations between the elements

3.1 coordinative compounds – the two elements are semantically equally important. F.e.: secretary-stenographer

3.2 subordinative compounds – the components are not equal, but are based on the domination of the head member, which is usually the second element. F.e.: heartbeat (beat is the head element).

4) part-of-speech classification

4.1 compound nouns.

4.2 compound adjectives. F.e.: blue-eyed, left-handed.

4.3 compound verbs. F.e.: to bypass, to hitchhike.

5) according to structural peculiarities

5.1 endocentric compounds are compound word in which the referent is named by one of the elements, the second element gives further characteristics. F.e.: sunbeam, maidservant, looking glass, sunflower, searchlight, bathrobe.

5.2 exocentric compounds – both elements taken together name the referent. F.e.: ladybird, pickpocket, cutthroat, lazybones.

6) according to the stability

6.1 loose. F.e.: blackboard, stonewall.

6.2 stable. F.e.: heartbeat, heartbreak.

7) according to the type of syntactic phrase with which the compound is correlated.

7.1 string compounds (см. identity of unit problem)

7.2 reduplicative compounds are words which are formed by doubling stems with or without sound interchange

7.2.1 reduplicative compounds proper. F.e.: pretty-pretty, fifty-fifty, very-very.

7.2.2 consisting of pseudo morphemes. F.e.: blah-blah, zig-zag.

7.2.3 sound imitating words. F.e.: hush-hush, knock-knock.

7.2.4 ablaut combinations – doubling stems with sound interchange. F.e.: chitchat, knick-knack.

7.2.5 rhyme compounds. F.e.: walkie-talkie, willy-nilly, boogie-woogie.

7.3 pseudo compounds are words which look like compounds, but were formed by backformation or conversion. F.e.: babysit, spotlight.

Affixation.

Affixation is forming new words by adding a derivational affix to a stem.

1) it is subdivided into

1.1 prefixation

2.2 suffixation

There are also infixes. F.e.: sportsman.

2) according to productivity

2.1 productive

2.2 non-productive

The most productive prefixes: non (nonsmoker), un (unpleasant), etc.

The most productive suffixes: er, ing, ness, ism, ist.

Non-productive suffixes: th (true – truth), hood (childhood), ship (friendship), dom (freedom).

3) according to their etymology

3.1 native. F.e.: suffixes: er, ful, less, like; prefixes: be, mis, over.

3.2 borrowed

3.2.1 Latin. F.e.: suffixes: able, ant / ent; prefixes: extra, pre, ultra.

3.2.2 Greek. F.e.: suffixes: ist; prefixes: nt, sym / syn.

3.2.3 French. F.e.: suffixes: age, ance / ence, ard, ee; prefixes: en /em.

4) according to their fuction

4.1 affixes proper

4.2 semi affixes (полуаффиксы). F.e.: some (handsome).

5) part-of-speech classification

5.1 noun-forming

5.2 adjective-forming

5.3 verb-forming

5.4 adverb-forming

The system of affixation in English was entirely upset by the Norman conquest. Some native affixes disappeared altogether.

Conversion.

Conversion is making a new word from an existing word by changing the category of a part of speech.

F.e.: work – to work; water – to water.

Conversion is highly productive in English.

There are several types of conversion in English:

1) verbalization. F.e.: water → to water; empty → to empty

2) substantivation.

3) adjectivation. F.e.: down (v.) → down (adj.).

4) adverbalisation. F.e.: home (n.) → home (adv.).

In English the most popular lines of conversion are forming nouns from verbs and verbs from nouns.

Conversion can be total and partial. Total conversion is registered in the dictionaries. F.e.: work as a noun and work as a verb. Partial conversion has occasional character and sometimes is used for the sake of irony, as a stylistic devise, etc. It is not registered in the dictionaries. F.e.: he uped and awayed in London; the girl has never been outed before.

Shortening / clipping.

Shortening is the formation of a new word by cutting off part of the parent word.

F.e.: examination – exam; laboratory – lab.

There are four types of shortening:

1) initial shortening / apheresis – the beginning of the word is cut off. F.e.: telephone – phone.

2) medial shortening / syncope – the middle of the word is taken away. F.e.: fantasy – fancy; spectacles – specs.

5) final shortening / apocope – the end od the word is cut off. F.e.: advertisement – ad.

6) mixed type (initial + final). F.e.: refrigerator – frige.

Blending.

Blending is the formation of a new word by combining parts of two or more words. It is not highly productive.

F.e.: Benelux = Belgium + Netherlands + Luxemburg; Oxbridge = Oxford + Cambridge.

The results of blending are called blends.

Types of blends:

1) additive. Blends of additive type can be transformed into a phrase with a conjunction “and”. F.e.: Oxbridge is Oxford and Cambridge.

2) restrictive. Blends of restrictive types can be transformed into a phrase “adjective = noun”. F.e.: medicare = medical care.

Sound imitation / onomatopoeia.

Sound imitation is based on phonetic motivation.

These words can be subdivided into several groups:

1) sounds produced by humans

2) sounds produced by animals

etc.

There is a wider interpretation of sound imitation. F.e.: fluffy.

Sound imitating words are iconic.

Back formation.

Back formation is the formation of a new word by cutting off a supposed suffix from a word that is wrongly regarded as a derivative. The new word is morphologically simpler then the parent word.

F.e.: baby-sitter; to typewrite; to vacuum-clean; to proof-reed.

Back formation first was used with French borrowings which are now regarded as cases of historical back formation. F.e.: burglar → to burgle; peddler → to peddle; cobbler → to cobble.

Sound interchange.

Sound interchange is the formation of a word by means of vowel interchange (ablaut) or consonant interchange or both vowel + consonant interchange.

Vowel interchange: food – to feed.

Consonant interchange: advice – advise.

Vowel + consonant interchange: life – to live.